Fixed That For Yahoo! ™

Articles on e-cigs are increasing in frequency all over the world. The latest to come to my attention sheds light on the situation in France, but Yahoo's journo appears to have got a lot wrong, so I've re-written it by striking out the inaccuracies and replacing or adding, as required, in bold text.

I think I've done a decent job, too.

PARIS (AFP) – Makers of electronic cigarettes are reporting strong growth in sales as anti-tobacco laws force European smokers into the cold streets, but campaigners government and pharma-funded interest groups say the device is undercutting health efforts nicotine replacement therapy sales.

Spain joined Sunday the ranks of countries that have outlawed smoking in enclosed public space after a wave of similar legislation illiberal social marketing measures across Europe.

For the makers of electronic cigarettes, which simulate the sensation of a cigarette and can contain nicotine, the traditionally heavy smoking nation marks a potentially lucrative market for their much-criticised, but perfectly safe, product.

"We have seen sales grow by 30 percent each year since 2007 when we launched our product," said a spokesman for EdSylver, one of the leading manufacturers of the product invented in China in 2004.

Manufacturers such as EdSylver say the plastic cigarette is not harmful for the smoker or people around them, but this claim is rejected by health experts those whose funding could be at risk.

At a World Health Organisation conference of vested interest rent-seekers in Uruguay in November, one of its leading anti-tobacco experts career prohibitionists Eduardo Bianco said electronic cigarettes "sabotaged smoking prevention profit maximisation efforts", which were designed to encourage people to quit buy their nicotine from Mr Bianco's paymasters and the conference sponsors.

The plastic cigarettes function as mini aerosols, releasing artificial smoke with or without nicotine.

"I am very happy with it, I want to repeat the feeling of smoking, without the harm of nicotine," said one Parisian user.

Professor Yves Martinet, head of the French National Committee Against Tobacco, said the electronic cigarette was a rip-off threat to his livelihood.

"This product offers no medical financial support for quitting smoking the pharmaceutical industry, there are some countries that have banned it on the back of our unsubstantiated scaremongering," he said.

"For the moment, this product has not been evaluated in a scientific way but we're working on studies, and politicians, which will make that irrelevant," he said.

The French national office for smoking prevention said the purpose of the electronic cigarette was "ambiguous" "enjoyable", and condemned its sale in pharmacies where it might be seen as a more attractive harm reduction method than nicotine patches.

The office said the products were presented by manufacturers both as "an aid to quitting and a product which would allow smoking in enclosed spaces., all of which is true but ruins our long term plans, goddamit!"

Tobacco sellers meanwhile reject manufacturers' claims that sales of the device are taking off.

"It doesn't sell at all, some of our members still have stocks from last year, I suppose the majority of sales are conducted online" said Gerard Bohelay, the head of an association of tobacco retailers in the French capital.